Infuse Infuse 10 December 2019 | Page 26
"Our goal is to get people
to experience food from the
farmer’s perspective"
What can attendees expect on one of your
culinary tours? What are some of the challenges that
chefs face?
L: We research each tour at great length and
no two experiences are ever the same. Our
goal is to get people to experience food from
the farmer’s perspective. L: Every chef, whether they're fine dining
or high volume or a small cafe, is dealing
with food costs and staff retention. And
within those sorts of daily parameters, it
can get very difficult to be creative. Quality
ingredients aren't cheap so keeping all those
costs in line and putting great food on the
plate is always tricky. That's why what we do
at Straight To The Source is so important-
we're making a case for buying quality
produce, be it for the flavour, nutritional
value or both.
We’ve become very disconnected from our
food sources. Supermarkets are incredibly
convenient, but they don't tell the story of
how that produce got there. We try to get
people out of their normal environments
and give them a behind the scenes look at a
particular ingredient or growing region.
We're very focused on collaborating with
growers and allowing them to tell their
story. The overall objective is to start a
conversation between the people that grow
the food and the people that source the food.
We’ve found that those conversations lead
to small changes in production that better
suit the end user. Similarly, chefs gain a new
perspective on seasonality and often adapt
their buying patterns.
We really put a focus on education and
professional development as opposed to
gastronomic luxury experiences. In addition,
we don't have any stakeholders, so we make
the decisions about who we visit and why
we visit.
© Dietitian Connection
Images courtesy of @straight_to_the_source
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Infuse | December 2019